Posted on 11/03/2008 12:09:53 PM PST by george76
The man accused of arranging for the killing of 32 bison on a neighbor's property struck a deal this morning in which he'll face minimal or no jail time but will have to open his wallet wide.
Jeffrey Scott Hawn, CEO of Seattle-based software firm Attachmate, pleaded guilty to a class 3 felony of criminal mischief and to a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to animals in Park County Court.
At his Jan. 28 sentencing he could get up to two years of probation and up to 10 days in Park County Jail.
Four generations of the Downare family, in cowboy hats and ranching clothes, were also in the courtroom, including head of the family, Monte, and infant Jared.
Prosecutor Katherine O'Brien said the Downares were "very reluctant to accept a plea, not because they are vindictive or have hatred or ill will."
Rather, they didn't want to accept a deal because killing livestock is such a serious crime in a ranching community
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
Queer as a three-dollar bill.
Enjoy your multiple felony counts. You sure showed them.
I'm no expert, but I don't think there is anything much different between dealing with them and dealing with the average beef steer. They both can be nasty critters at times from what I know of them.
Will do. I know I have had to spend more than I had figured fixing up an old fence to keep a new Beagle pup with an overactive nose in the yard ;~)) but the fence I saw up there in Edenboro didn't look like it was designed for elephants or rhinos. I'd guess that it was electric but buzzing by at 75 mph I just never checked the fence that close. I always just look for the bison.
If you get up that way it is on the North bound lane about a mile past the Edenboro exit. There are others in the area, but that is the one I have been by most often.
BTW. I like bison meat.
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Good luck fencing bison out of ANYWHERE they really want to go.
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But the big buffalo herd at The Wichita Mountains Wildlife refuge are plenty
content to roam freely within their fenced perimeter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_Mountains_Wildlife_Refuge
Same for a buffalo “ranch” south of Wichita, KS and another buffalo
ranch north of Columbia, MO.
I’d grant the fence MUST be substantial. But they can be fenced in.
And although I’d want something stouter, you apparently don’t have
to put up A Berlin Wall to keep ‘em in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Buffalo,_Colorado.JPG
Yes, scratch the surface and there's hate and envy of the rich. You and those who think like you are nothing but redistributionists. You want the "evil rich' guy's property to be open to exploitation by some guy who raises bison and you support your hate and envy under the color of the law repeatedly telling me it was legal for the bison owner to do what he did - so what? It was legal for the city of Kelo to seize homeowners' property to give to a developer. Doesn't mean that it was right. I'm not even rich just supporting some guy who is and the hostility toward me is palpable.
Read some history and understand the tradition of the American West before you shoot your mouth off and reveal what little you know.
And don't presume to lecture me on the "history and traditions of the west" because your own abysmal ignorance gapes wide with that statement. Apparently you never heard of the great buffalo hunts between 1872 and 1897 that nearly caused the extinction of the species. You bring up western tradition you can't just pick and chose those parts of it that fit with your wealth envy.
"Your right to swing your fist ends at my jaw." (Will Rogers) Your right to graze your animals ends at my property line is my take on this one. Colorado law notwithstanding; after all as a "long time freeper" (whatever that implies) you should understand that the law is not always just. An obvious example would be the Kelo case. Law on one side reason on the other. Same here. I see friends of the guy that owned the bison stepped right up to the bat with comments like "hang him" Nice. What i've taken out of this is that you (collective not necessarily you individual) think that
If they're wild mustangs how can they be your neighbors? There are two parts to the answer - is it legal and is it right. In Park county it appears not to be legal, but is it right? A lot of people here seem to condone the property damage done BY the bison but vociferously condemn the property damage done TO the bison. If your neighbors animals repeatedly destroy your property and the neighbor tells you too bad - wasn't his animals and that you have to put up a couple miles of fence at $10 a foot if you want to protect your property what do you do?
I had a friend you repeatedly lost chickens to neighbors dogs. The same story - not my dogs, need to keep your chickens in a better house (this is after the guy cut the fence between his property and hers so that his dogs could run on my friend's property more easily) She stayed home from work one day with a shotgun and killed all three of them when they showed up to have a chicken dinner, dragged the remains out in the road and ran over them a time or two to give rise to the fiction that they were hit by a car. The dog owner thought it was pretty funny when his dogs killed her chickens, but was absolutely livid with rage when his animals were killed. However, 1. she didn't flaunt the fact that she shot them and 2. I think he was a little afraid that she'd shoot him too so other than complaining bitterly about it and making all sorts of legal threats that came to nothing. he stopped running his dogs on her property. Whose side would you be on here?
;-)
Hawn wasn't real neighborly. Check the timeline. Or just maybe he was set up by the former owner, his foreman.You seem to side with the rich city slicker carpetbaggers.
You seem to be very ignorant of this past winter in Park county.This past winter was very difficult for many.
There were blizzards driving snow over the top of fences.
I know, as I live in the next county.
The buffalo is twice as big and less domesticated.
Were these laws really meant to cover bison? I have no idea, but was anyone actually raising bison back when these laws were passed? I would be surprised if that was the case. I think these laws were meant to cover "standard" livestock.
At the time that most of the laws were passed, the bison were still fairly plentiful in the wild; there was no economic motive to ‘raise’ them. Later they were hunted almost to extinction, because the meat was in demand.
IIRC, I posted pictures of my daughter's horses standing in snow up to their hackles, in the hills above Golden.
Someone cited the law upthread- it seems like bison are a real outlier in terms of the livestock covered by this law. They are substantially larger than the other animals on the list. I’m not defending this guy- he decided to be an ass and decided to ignore the law. But I think defining buffalo as livestock under this law places an undue burden on neigbors of such ranches.
Strange approach to private property out West, where people are expected to incur the burden of someone else’s livestock.
What proof was ever submitted that the bison did any damage?
I can show you several places in California where bison graze behind 100-year-old barbed wire fences and never breach them.
I have no wealth envy.
I don’t wish anyone else’s money.
I have plenty of my own. Who knows, possibly more than you do.
Classical musicians are very well paid, my friend.
Oh, for your information I was totally against the SCOTUS decision on eminent domain.
Bison are not normally difficult to raise, and rarely do any damage. The problems can arise when too many bulls are kept, but experienced ranchers don’t do that, since the steers are worth more than an unnecessary bull.
IIRC, I posted pictures of my daughter's horses standing in snow up to their hackles, in the hills above Golden.
The wind blows from the west gusting up to 50 & 60 mph. It is a very wide and long flat bottomed valley with no trees. I live in the next county over, Chaffee county We had the most severe winter in memory. South Park has been closed due to blizzards I can only guess that there were no fences The fences were most likely all covered in snow and ice. South Park, where this took place, always has harsh winters.
which is known as the banana belt because of mild winters
more than once this winter.
of any kind to keep the livestock in.
Mr. Hawn used to be with BMC in Houston. He's a Texan (of the greater Houston urban cowboy kind).
Attachmate is based in Seattle but a lot of their operations are in right to work states.
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